Glenn Beck Biography

Summary

"Glenn Lee Beck" (born February 10, 1964) is an American radio and television host, political commentator, author, and entrepreneur. He hosts "The Glenn Beck Program", a nationally syndicated talk radio show that airs throughout the United States on Premiere Radio Networks. Beck also hosts a self-titled television show on Fox News Channel. He refers to himself as a libertarian and a conservative who is 'fighting for individual rights.'

In addition to broadcasting, Beck has written three "New York Times"-bestselling books, and is the publisher of "Fusion Magazine". He also stars in a one-man stage show that tours the US twice a year. Glenn Beck was featured on the cover of the Sept 28, 2009 issue of Time magazine.

Personal life

Glenn Beck was born in Everett, Washington, in February 1964, later moving as a small child to the Skagit County town of Mount Vernon, Washington. He was raised as a Roman Catholic. His father owned and operated City Bakery in downtown Mount Vernon for a number of years, while Beck attended Mount Vernon's private Immaculate Conception Catholic school through the eighth grade. At 13, Beck won a contest that landed him his first broadcast gig as a deejay for local radio station KBRC. Beck's parents were divorced in 1977. In 1979, Beck's mother died in a boating accident in Tacoma, Washington, when he was 15. A Tacoma police report states 'It was determined that (Mary Beck) appeared to be a classic drowning victim' and that the man who had taken her fishing also drowned in the boating incident. Although it was considered a probable accident, Coast Guard investigators noted that she had been thought to be experiencing a nervous breakdown at the time and speculated that she may have jumped overboard. Beck was living with his mother at the time of her death. After his mother's death, Beck moved north of Mount Vernon to his father's home in Bellingham where Beck graduated from Sehome High School in 1982. In the aftermath of his mother's death and subsequent suicide of one of his brothers, Beck has said he used 'Dr. Jack Daniel's' to cope.

When he was 18 years-old, Beck moved from Washington state to Salt Lake City, Utah, following graduation from high-school. It was while sharing an apartment in Salt Lake with a former Mormon missionary that Beck was first exposed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Beck met his first wife, Claire, in 1983, when he went to Washington, D.C., to work at radio station WPGC. The couple married, had two daughters, Mary and Hannah, and then divorced in 1994 amid his struggles with substance abuse. Beck's daughter Mary, born in 1988, has cerebral palsy, the result of a series of strokes at birth.

Beck is a recovering alcoholic and drug addict. and also has a diagnosis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder. He cites the help of Alcoholics Anonymous in his sobriety and attended his first AA meeting in November of 1994, the month he stopped drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana.

In 1996, while he was working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. One of his recommendations for admittance came from Senator Joe Lieberman. Beck took a one theology class, 'Early Christology,' and then dropped out.

In 1999, Beck married his second wife, Tania. They joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in October 1999, partly at the urging of his daughter Mary. The couple have two children, Raphe and Cheyenne and currently live in New Canaan, Connecticut.

Political views

Beck says of his political views, 'I consider myself a libertarian. I'm a conservative, but every day that goes by I'm fighting for individual rights.' Among his core values Beck lists personal responsibility, private charity, right to life, freedom of religion, low debt, limited government, and family as the cornerstone of society.

Beck supports individual gun ownership rights and is against gun control legislation. He has suggested that President Barack Obama's health care reform agenda is a means by which Obama can effect reparations for slavery. Beck believes that there is a lack of evidence that human activity is the main cause of global warming, views the American Clean Energy and Security Act as a form of wealth redistribution, and has promoted a petition rejecting the Kyoto Protocol.

9-12 Project

A group of marchers at the in Washington, D.C.

Beck put together a campaign, "The 9-12 Project", that is named for nine principles and twelve values which he says embody the spirit of the American people on the day after the September 11 attacks. Beck has supported the tea party protests from their inception and held a broadcast from one of the April 2009 rallies in San Antonio.

In September 2009, the conservative political activism group Freedomworks organized the Taxpayer March on Washington, to rally against President Obama's policies. The event was inspired by Beck's 9/12 project and attracted many people, with estimates ranging from 75,000 to over 1 million.

Career

Radio

Radio historian Marc Fisher has posited that Beck is 'first and foremost an entertainer, who happens to have stumbled into a position of political prominence.' Beck began his radio career in 1977, at age 13, when he won a local radio contest on station KBRC in Mount Vernon, Washington, to be a disc jockey for an hour. Then he and his school classmates produced old-time radio with live scripts and sound effects for another local station, KGMI. Two years later, at age 15, he began working part-time at Seattle station KUBE 93 (FM). He hosted Christian radio on Saturday, rock music on Sunday and country music on weeknights.

After graduating from high school, Beck pursued his career as a Top 40 DJ. In 1982, he moved to Salt Lake City, Utah, to work at K 96, a station owned by First Media, a Mormon company based in Washington, D.C., which also owned KUBE. Beck left in February 1983 to go to WPGC-FM in Washington, D.C., another First Media radio station. Later that year, he moved to Corpus Christi, Texas, to work at radio station KZFM.

In mid-1985, Beck was hired away from KZFM to be the lead DJ for the morning-drive radio broadcast by WRKA in Louisville, Kentucky. His four-hour weekday show was called "Captain Beck and the A-Team". With Beck at the lead during morning drive, WRKA slipped to third in the market. Beck was fired in late 1986.

In early 1987, Beck was hired by the Top 40 powerhouse KOY-FM, known as Y-95, in Phoenix, Arizona. Beck, then 23, was partnered with Tim Hattrick, a 26-year-old Arizona native. Beck resigned from Y-95 to accept a job in Houston, where he began working in early 1989 at KRBE, known as Power 104. He was fired in 1990 because of poor ratings. Beck would later tell the "Houston Chronicle" that his stint at Power 104 'was the worst time in my broadcasting career...'

Beck then moved to Baltimore, Maryland, to work at the city's leading Top 40 station, WBSB, known as B104. There he partnered with Pat Gray, a 27-year-old morning DJ. During his tenure at B104, Beck was arrested for speeding in his DeLorean with one of the car's gull-wing doors wide open. According to a former colleague, Beck was 'completely out of it' when a B104 manager went down to the station to bail him out. After a year of struggling personally and professionally, Beck found himself working alone when Gray's contract was canceled. When Beck was fired also, the two men spent six months in Baltimore living off of their severance, unemployed and planning their next move. That was, in early 1992, to WKCI-FM (KC101), a Top 40 radio station in .

At WKCI, Gray and Beck co-hosted the local four-hour morning show, billed as the "Glenn and Pat Show". On a 1995 broadcast of the show, Alf Papineau pretended to speak Chinese during a taped comedy skit. When an Asian-American listener called to complain, Gray and Beck made fun of the caller and played gongs in the background while Papineau spoke in a mock-Chinese accent. The listener contacted a number of human rights organizations, four of which formed the Connecticut Asian American Coalition Against KC101 Racism. The station manager read an apology on the air and the station issued a written pledge to refrain from offensive activities and instituted cultural sensitivity training for employees.

When Gray left the show to move to Salt Lake City, Beck continued with co-host Vinnie Penn. At the end of 1998, Beck was told that his contract would not be renewed when it expired at the end of the 1999.

"The Glenn Beck Program" first aired in 2000 on WFLA (AM) in , and took their afternoon time slot from eighteenth to first place within a year. In January 2002, Premiere Radio Networks launched the show nationwide on forty-seven stations. The show then moved to , broadcasting from new flagship station WPHT. On November 5, 2007, "The New York Times" reported that Premiere Radio Networks was extending Beck's contract. By May 2008, it had reached over 280 terrestrial stations as well as XM Satellite. It was ranked 4th in the nation with over six and a half million listeners.

Television

In January 2006, CNN's Headline News announced that Beck would host a nightly news-commentary show in their new prime-time block "Headline Prime". The show, simply called "Glenn Beck", aired weeknights at 7:00 p.m., repeating at 9:00 p.m. and midnight (all times Eastern) from May 8, 2006 to October 16, 2008.

By 2007, Beck's success on CNN had ABC wanting him for occasional appearances on "Good Morning America".

"CNN Headline News" described the show as 'an unconventional look at the news of the day featuring his often amusing perspective on the top stories from world events and politics to pop culture and everyday hassles.' At the end of his time at CNN-HLN, Beck had the second largest audience behind Nancy Grace. On July 21, 2008, Beck filled in for Larry King on the show "Larry King Live". In 2008, Beck won the Marconi Radio Award for Network Syndicated Personality of the Year.

On October 16, 2008, it was announced that Glenn Beck would join the Fox News Channel, leaving behind "CNN Headline News." CNN pulled the program off the air the same day. A news hour with Jane Velez-Mitchell filled Beck's former slot, with subsequent slots filled by "Lou Dobbs Tonight" encores. After moving to the Fox News Channel, Beck began to host "Glenn Beck" airing weekdays at 5pm ET, beginning January 19 2009, as well as a weekend version. His first guests included Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and the wives of Jose Compean and Ignacio Ramos. He also has a regular segment every Friday on the Fox News Channel program "The O'Reilly Factor" titled 'At Your Beck and Call.' Beck's program currently draws more viewers than all three of the competing time-slot shows on CNN, MSNBC and HLN combined.

Books and other media

While working in Connecticut, Beck appeared and sang background vocals on The Delrays' "Red, White and Blues" CD, a fund raising effort by then Governor John G. Rowland produced by guitarist Tom Guerra. The CD was well received and was promoted by a series of live appearances.

In 2002 Beck created "Mercury Radio Arts", a media platform which produces his broadcast, publishing and online projects, as well as his live performances.

Beck is the author of a number of books:

"The Real America: Messages from the Heart and Heartland", released September 1, 2003

"An Inconvenient Book", released November 20, 2007, was #1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller list for the week of December 9, 2007

"The Christmas Sweater", released on November 11, 2008, was #1 on the "New York Times" Best Seller list for the week of November 30, 2008, and the week of December 25, 2008.

"Glenn Beck's Common Sense: The Case Against an Out-of-Control Government, Inspired by Thomas Paine", released June 2009.

"Arguing with Idiots: America's Next Epic Battle: 1776 vs. 1984", scheduled for September 2009 release.

Additionally, Beck was the author of the foreword to the 2008 edition of conservative author Cleon Skousen's "The 5,000 Year Leap". Beck has described the book as 'divinely inspired.'

Beck is the publisher of ""Fusion Magazine"", which is a play on the slogan of the "The Glenn Beck Program", 'The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment.'

Live events

In a critique of his live act, "Salon Magazine's" Steve Almond describes Beck as a 'wildly imaginative performer, a man who weds the operatic impulses of the demagogue to the grim mutterings of the conspiracy theorist.'

In March 2003, Beck ran a series of rallies called "Glenn Beck's Rally for America" in support of troops deployed for the upcoming Iraq War. He ran the final rally at Marshall University over the Memorial Day weekend. In subsequent years, Beck has toured American cities twice a year, presenting a one-man stage show. His stage productions are a mix of stand-up comedy and inspirational speaking. His current tour is called "Glenn Beck's Common Sense Comedy Tour".

In 2005, the summer show "Glenn Beck: On Ice" advocated diminishing the role of politics in daily life. The 2006 summer show "The Mid-Life Crisis Tour" featured life's lessons from the perspective of a middle-aged man.

In June 2007, Beck completed his latest tour called "An Inconvenient Tour". It focused on the inconvenient aspects of everyday life, and was a parody of Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth". On July 4, 2007, Beck served as host of the 2007 Toyota Tundra 'Stadium of Fire' in . The annual event at LaVell Edwards Stadium on the Brigham Young University campus is presented by America's Freedom Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is 'to provide deeply felt emotional experiences that celebrate and promote the traditional American values of family, freedom, God and country.'

On May 17, 2008, Beck gave the keynote speech at the NRA convention in Louisville, Kentucky.

On August 31, 2009, Bud Norris, mayor of Beck's childhood hometown, Mount Vernon, Washington, announced that he will award Beck the key to the city in recognition of his achievements. The announcement drew both support and cries of protest from local residents. In response to public opposition to the award, the Mount Vernon City Council voted unanimously to disassociate itself from the award. The mayor stated that it was not an endorsement of Beck as a political commentator, rather, recognition of a former resident who is now a celebrity. The key presentation ceremony is a sold-out event with approximately $15,000 in ticket sales; at least a portion of the proceeds will go to Mount Vernon's Historic Lincoln Theatre. The presentation is scheduled to take place September 26, 2009, at Skagit Valley College's 850-seat McIntyre Hall.

Financial success

In June 2009, estimators at "Forbes magazine" pegged Beck's earnings over the previous 12 months at $23 million, with 2009-2010 revenues on track to be even higher. Although the majority of his revenue results from his radio show and books, his website's 5 million unique visitors per month also draws at least $3 million annually, while his salary at Fox News is estimated at $2 million per year. Additionally, Beck's online magazine "Fusion", sells an array of Beck-themed merchandise.

Commentary and reception

Beck's shows have been described as a 'mix of moral lessons, outrage and an apocalyptic view of the future ... capturing the feelings of an alienated class of Americans.' One of Beck's Fox News Channel colleagues Shepard Smith, has jokingly called Beck's studio the 'fear chamber', with Beck countering that he preferred the term 'doom room.'

Beck has referred to himself as an entertainer, a commentator rather than a reporter, a rodeo clown, and identified with Howard Beale 'When he came out of the rain and he was like, none of this makes any sense. I am that guy.' "Time Magazine" describes Beck as 'the new populist superstar of Fox News' saying it is easier to see a set of attitudes rather than a specific ideology, noting his criticism of Wall Street, yet defending bonuses to AIG, as well as denouncing conspiracies against FEMA but warning against indoctrination of children by the AmeriCorps program. What seems to unites Beck's disparate themes they note, is a sense of siege. "Time" further describes Beck as 'a gifted storyteller with a knack for stitching seemingly unrelated data points into possible conspiracies', proclaiming that he has 'emerged as a virtuoso on the strings' of Conservative's discontent ... mining the timeless theme of the corrupt "Them" thwarting a virtuous "Us".'

In 2006, Beck asked Muslim congressman-elect Keith Ellison, a guest on his show, to 'prove to me that you are not working with our enemies...And I know you're not. I'm not accusing you of being an enemy, but that's the way I feel.' Ellison replied that his constituents, 'know that I have a deep love and affection for my country. There's no one who's more patriotic than I am, and so you know, I don't need to - need to prove my patriotic stripes.' Beck's question, which he himself suggested was 'quite possibly the poorest-worded question of all time,' resulted in protests from several Arab-American organizations.

During the 2009 Henry Louis Gates controversy, Beck argued that President Barack Obama has repeatedly shown 'a deep-seated hatred for white people or the white culture,' saying 'I'm not saying he doesn't like white people. I'm saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.' These remarks drew criticism, and resulted in a boycott promulgated by Color of Change. The boycott resulted in over 60 advertisers requesting their ads be removed from his programming, to avoid associating their brands with content that could be considered offensive by potential customers.

In July of 2009, Glenn Beck began to devote what would become many episodes on his TV and radio shows, focusing on Obama's Director of White House Council on Environmental Quality, Van Jones. Beck was critical of Jones' involvement in a communist non-governmental group, and his support for hotly debated death row inmate, Mumia Abu-Jamal, who had been convicted of killing a police officer. Among other things, Beck referred to Jones as a 'communist-anarchist radical'. It has been speculated that Beck's criticisms may have been motivated in part by Jones' prior involvement in Color of Change, the organization that had previously convinced advertisers to pull their support from Beck's TV show. In September of 2009, Jones resigned his position in the Obama administration, after a number of his past statements became fodder for conservative critics and Republican officials. "Time" magazine credited Beck with leading conservatives' attack on Jones, which Jones would characterize a 'vicious smear campaign' and an effort to use 'lies and distortions to distract and divide'.